Money Is the Megaphone of Identity
Money Is the Megaphone of Identity
By Lawrence Yeo
There was an extended period of time in my twenties when I didn’t have a job. For most of us, that’s not a big deal. We have our whole lives ahead of us to work, so taking a few months off to “find yourself” can be completely justifiable. Well, let’s just say that wasn’t the case for me.
I spent sleepless nights scouring job postings for any company that might be interested in what little I had to offer. I smacked that “Upload Resume” button around like it was my arch nemesis, but made sure to carefully upload the proper file format before doing so. My days consisted of nothing but napping, eating, uploading, and submitting. To put it mildly, I was in a state of panic to find some sort of work. Some might have viewed this obsessive job search as an impressive character trait. It may have masqueraded as a signal of ambition, an indicator that I was a guy that had his priorities straight.
The truth, however, was far from that. I wasn’t driven by some magnificent search for purpose, or the nagging desire to provide value to society. I was driven by something far less chivalrous:
My intense, terrifying fear of being homeless.
For the longest time, this fear is what drove my panicked desire to find stable, well-paying work (regardless of how pointless it was). I thought that as long as I could save some money with each paycheck, I wouldn’t have to sleep in the streets if something went awry.
Some of you may understand this fear, while others may view it as deeply irrational. I know people from wealthy backgrounds who have this fear, and people raised on welfare that don’t. My family didn’t have much money growing up, but that doesn’t quite justify the existence of this strain of fright.
Regardless of its origin, this fear was very much alive in me throughout my twenties, and it framed my perspective of money. Instead of viewing money as a generator of wealth, I saw it as an immediate safety net that (barely) kept me away from living on freeway on-ramps. The more of it I had, the more relief and distance it gave me from the streets.
Falling Into Money Safety Net
Well, many years have passed since then, and fortunately, I no longer have this fear.1 However, that doesn’t mean that I no longer think about money. It’s the greatest story humanity has ever subscribed to, so it will always be a central character in the theater of everyday life. What has changed isn’t money itself, but the way in which it colors the way I view the world.
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